Arts Engagement as a Health Behavior: An Opportunity to Address Mental Health Inequities

Abstract

The significance of mental health inequities globally is illustrated by higher rates of anxiety and depression amongst racial and ethnic minority populations as well as individuals of lower socioeconomic status. The COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated these pre-existing mental health inequities. With rising mental health concerns, arts engagement offers an accessible, equitable opportunity to combat mental health inequities and impact upstream determinants of health. As the field of public health continues to shift its focus toward social ecological strategies, the social ecological model of health offers an approach that prioritizes social and structural determinants of health. To capture the impacts of arts engagement, this paper creates an applied social ecological model of health while aiming to advocate that engaging in the arts is a protective and rehabilitative behavior for mental health.

Relationships between arts participation, social cohesion, and wellbeing: An integrative review and conceptual model

“…In recent years, arts and cultural strategies have been increasingly engaged by the public health sector to enhance community health and well-being, as well as to address social drivers and causes of health inequities and disparities in the United States (US) (1)(2)(3)(4). This uptake is in part due to the growing body of evidence that links arts and cultural participation to notable impacts on health and well-being at the population level in this country, including on mental health (5), flourishing among young people (6), healthy aging (7), and even mortality (8).…”

Predictors of arts engagement in older adults in Japan: novel findings from a national study and cross-cultural comparisons with the United States

“…Art activities provide a combination of creativity and complex cognitive tasks and may enable individuals to lead a more active and socially engaged life, 6,7 with arts engagement increasingly recognized as a positive health behavior. 8 In older adults, arts engagement has been associated with enhanced wellbeing 9,10 and healthy aging, 11 as well as reduced risk of depression, 12,13 dementia, 14 cognitive decline, 15,16 and mortality. [17][18][19] Although these activities present cost-effective strategies to improve older adults' health and wellbeing, they are undervalued and underutilized.…”

“…The US provides an interesting comparison as there is increasing focus on the role of arts engagement in public health. 8,20 However, while there is some evidence on the individual-level predictors of arts engagement in the US, such research has (i) focused on factors such as education or income, 31 without considering the broader range of interrelated demographic, socio-cultural, and neighborhood factors that might also determine engagement levels; 25 (ii) mostly included small samples that are not nationally representative (making findings difficult to generalize), 32,33 and (iii) focused on working age adults who might experience different barriers to arts engagement compared to older adults. 25,31,34,35 Therefore, in addition to the comparison to Japan, we simultaneously provide novel data on the US context.…”